Ground cover plants are an excellent way to add greenery to your garden while also reducing the amount of maintenance required. Also, growing ground covers fill in spaces where other plants refuse to grow. Here are 11 low-maintenance options that require very little care to keep looking fantastic year after year. To carpet your landscape with handsome foliage that brings texture and interesting shapes to the garden, let’s consider growing them!
These low-maintenance ground cover plants are an attractive and practical addition to any garden, providing an attractive and hassle-free way to keep your landscape looking great with minimal effort. Some provide lovely fragrances and attract pollinators while others are edible, or have medicinal qualities too. Keep reading to know more about them.
#1 Aromatic Aster
Source: chicagobotanic
Aromatic Aster grows well in hardy zones from 3 to 8. They can tolerate poor and drought soils. From August to September, the showy flowers with violet-blue slender petals are arranged around a yellow center, making them great options for a dry and sunny garden. Also, these flowers can attract butterflies and birds. The rigid blue-green leaves fill the air with the scent of balsam when crushed
#2 Purple Poppy Mallow
Source: blazingstargardens
Purple Poppy Mallow thrives in hardy zones from 4 to 8 and can reach 6 inches to 1 foot in height and spread 6 inches to 3 feet. They provide a brilliant display of magenta-hued, cup-shaped flowers that occur from mid-spring to autumn. They prefer full sun and grow easily in dry or moist soil in sunny spots in the garden.
#3 Creeping Phlox
Source: thespruce
Creeping Phlox offers colorful and fragrant flowers from early to late spring to make a striking carpet across the yard. They give a gorgeous look when grown along pathways and cascading atop retaining walls. Give them full sun for the best growth with 3 to 6 inches in height and 1 to 2 feet wide.
#4 Bunchberry
Source: shoreroadnursery
Native to Greenland and Eastern Asia, as well as North America, this plant brings veined, oval leaves, beautiful flowers, and dense clusters of bright red berries in August. The berries can be eaten and attract humans and birds. They favor growing in cooler climates with plenty of shade. They grow happily underneath trees, shrubs, and other shady areas in the garden. If grown in the right condition, they will achieve 3 to 9 inches in height and spread 6 inches to 1 foot.
#5 Woodland Stonecrop
Source: worldofsucculents
Woodland Stonecrop is a part of the succulent family that displays whorls of fleshy and rounded light-green leaves. In April, they bloom with clusters of tiny white flowers arising on stems above the leaves making them look great if planted in stony landscapes and rock gardens. They grow well both in full sun and part shade.
#6 Sea Thrift
Source: kew
Sea thrift can grow well in dry, infertile soil next to the salty spray of the seas. In April, they bring clusters of tiny pink or white flowers that create a spherical shape. The blooms are highly prized by butterflies and bees.
#7 Roundleaf Liverleaf
Source: flickr
The flowers of the Roundleaf Liverleaf are an important early source of nectar for pollinating insects. When planted in fertile and consistently moist soils, they will self-seed to create a matting effect. They prefer to grow in part shade and do well in hardy zones from 3 to 8.
#8 Wild Geranium
Source: hgtv
Wild Geranium is a pretty plant that shows off deeply lobed, green leaves with papery saucer-shaped flowers in pink or lavender. The blooms open 6 to 7 weeks in mid-spring attracting butterflies and other pollinating insects. They are an easygoing perennial ground cover that takes well to fertile or poor soils, sun or shade, and moist or dry sites.
#9 White Evening Primrose
Source: picturethisai
Also known as pink ladies and Mexican primrose, the White Evening Primrose is a heat-loving, drought-tolerant perennial that grows well in zones from 4 to 9. They grow vigorously and spread by rhizomes and self-seeding. From late spring until early fall, the fragrant flowers are formed with large, satiny petals, the blooms start out white then turn pink as they mature.
#10 Goldenstar
Source: marylandbiodiversity
Native to forests from Pennsylvania to Louisiana, the Goldenstar is a low-growing perennial that grows well in hardy zones from 5 to 9. They offer bright green leaves that spread on a mat along the ground. In spring, the star-shaped flowers rise above the greenery with five rounded petals. They like consistently moist soils with plenty of shade but also can tolerate full sun when planted in damp areas of the garden.
#11 Wild Strawberry
Source: organicgardener
Wild Strawberry is a low-growing and sprawling perennial that spreads 1 to 2 feet. They do best in hardy zones from 5 to 9 and grow well both in full sun and part shade. From April to May, they will reward you with white petaled flowers with a yellow center. Once the flowers fall down, small red fruits appear, they are just as sweet and tasty when plucked from the plant or prepped into jams and pies.
